New COVID-19 Strain Won't Impact Vaccine's Effectiveness, Reveal Experts

This weekend was rather sad for people in the UK when the authorities revealed that a new strain of the novel coronavirus has been spotted in the nation that is known to spread more rapidly than the conventional kind.

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This forced the authorities to call for severe lockdown in the areas of London and south England while other European nations too decided to stop transport to and from the UK.

However, in case you were one of the many who were worried if this new strain of the coronavirus would be ineffective against the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines that are currently being rolled out in the nation, you¡¯d be happy to know that this new strain still remains ineffective against the vaccine.

This is according to Germany¡¯s health minister Jens Spahn (reported first by AFP) who revealed this in a conversation with news broadcaster ZDF, "According to everything we know so far the new strain has no impact on the vaccines, which remain just as effective.¡± He revealed this after conversations with experts of European authorities.

Moreover, this claim was further supported by the French Government, which revealed that the genetic variant of the new strain doesn¡¯t seem to entail, at this stage of knowledge, to be more serious or be more resistant to the vaccine.

Spahn was referring particularly to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which has been rolling out in the UK starting this month.

Vin Gupta, an affiliate assistant professor from the University of Washington¡¯s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, in a conversation with CNBC has also revealed that in his expert opinion, the vaccine would be able to take down this new strain without any hiccups.

Reuters

He says, ¡°The effectiveness of these vaccines in producing antibodies that can really attack and kill Covid-19 is extraordinary. I don¡¯t expect these minor changes at the genetic level ¡­ to affect the vaccines¡¯ performance in the near term.¡±

He however added that vaccine makers should factor in some variants of the novel coronavirus into account to create a more effective vaccine, ¡°I do think that this might impact our future-facing work, but it¡¯s not going to impact the near term. It will not impact the current vaccines¡¯ effectiveness in ending the pandemic.